The Breathtaking Hypocrisy of Julian Assange, Kremlin Pawn

How foolish of me it was to question whether Wikileaks founder Julian Assange really had a deal to distribute his new talk show to hundreds of millions of viewers. It turns out he does: with Russia Today, the English-language news network launched by the Russian government to massage its international image.

That's right: Assange, self-styled foe of government secrets and conspiracies of the powerful, is going to be a star on a TV network backed by the Kremlin. The same Kremlin that has done suspiciously little to investigate or prevent the killings and beatings of journalists that have plagued Russia for more than a decade. The same Kremlin accused of blatant fraud in December's parliamentary elections. The same Kremlin whose control of the country's broadcast media allowed it to suppress coverage of the massive protests mounted in response to that fraud. The same Kremlin whose embrace of corruption led to Russia being named "the world's most corrupt major economy" by Transparency International in 2011.

And so on. That Kremlin is Julian Assange's new patron. The same Julian Assange who accused President Obama of putting "a chill across investigative journalism" by prosecuting Army leaker Bradley Manning.

Actually, though, maybe it makes sense. After all, Assange has said "it's an international disgrace that so few western journalists have been killed in the course of duty, or have been arrested in the course of duty." Russian journalists certainly aren't disgracing themselves in that regard: They've been dying by the dozens, and their murders are seldom solved: Only three of the 33 murders of journalists committed in Russia since 1993 have been solved, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

In November 2010, in response to reports that Wikileaks was on the verge of releasing documents that would incriminate powerful Russian politicians and companies, Assange told my colleague Andy Greenberg that "we have material on many business and governments, including in Russia." As is frequently the case with Assange, no such documents have ever emerged. Anyone want to bet on the chances that'll ever happen now?

I've been covering the business of news, information and entertainment in one form or another for more than 10 years. In February 2014, I moved to San Francisco to cover the tech beat. My primary focus is social media and digital media, but I'm interested in other aspects, ...